Foundation of Understanding
May. 16th, 2022 07:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madimpossibledreamerMain Points:
Buffy/Devil May Cry/Resident Evil/Background NCIS Crossover
Chapter Summary: Leon gives Xander a place to start.
Word Count: 965
Rating: Teen
Pairing: Leon/Xander
When Leon finally looks back up, he realizes they’ve been sitting here a while. The fidgety half-devil doesn’t look bored, though. He’s just been staring fondly at Leon scribbling, apparently, which makes him smile sheepishly and scratch the back of his head. “Sorry; I didn’t mean to ignore you.”
Xander grins and pats the back of his hand. “That’s all right. I was composing a documentary in my head.” He sounds fond. At Leon’s questioning eyebrow, he adds in a narrator voice, “Here we see the Agent Kennedy in his element.”
It’s Leon’s turn to laugh and look away. “Somehow, I’m not sure you’d want to actually publish that one.”
Too late, he realizes how many ways that could possibly be taken, but as Redgrave gets serious, it seems that’s not going to be clarified. “So, big picture. What are we missing?”
The agent pauses, trying to figure out a commonality—and yeah, he can go with that. “Xander, you’ve got a title, right?”
“The One Who Sees,” Xander responds slowly, clearly aware of the irony that he has no idea where this conversation is going.
“I mean, in the organization,” Leon tries to clarify, and just gets a blue-eyed blank stare in return. He squeezes the hand he’s holding to show he’s not frustrated and changes tack. “Okay, let’s try this again. You’ve got a chain of command in the battlefield, right? Why do you have that?”
“…So you know who’s the coolest?” Redgrave tries, before shaking his head, aware that’s not the answer Leon’s looking for. “So you know who’s giving the orders.” He doesn’t sound all that more confident in that response, but it’s a start.
“Say a lookout spots another group of demons trying to be stealthy on the other side of camp. Who should they go to?” It’s not all a battlefield, which is sometimes hard enough to remember after the hell that was Racoon City. The sad thing is, Leon is getting the feeling he’s got a better grasp of the fact that not everything is a battlefield than these kids do. And yeah, so they’re not all kids, that would be creepy and probably illegal, but still. They have covered that Xander is younger, and in some ways they’re stuck in that ‘child in a warzone’ mentality and never emerged.
“The leader.” He’s definitely more sure about that response. Leon waits patiently, and his eye widens. “Oh. You’re trying to tell me that titles aren’t all about sounding cool.”
“Well, certain titles—Slayer, Watcher, Witch, and the like—they definitely serve a purpose in your organization, but it’s not good to stop there. If you want to go school club, you’d have a treasurer—more business, a Chief Financial Officer. Structure isn’t the enemy; it gives you a stable foundation so you know the world isn’t going to crumble under your feet. Your average Watcher here is responsible for a certain number of kids, but they shouldn’t have to do everything. You’re going to have your hands full interviewing and vetting people, but you should actually have staff—cleaners, therapists, and the like. There should be a structure in place so a complaint can bypass if necessary—for example, who can one of the children or teenagers talk to if they have a problem with their Watcher, or just don’t feel comfortable talking to them about it? If—and this is a purely theoretical example because I don’t know everything yet—one of your young Witches—has a prophetic dream…”
“Slayers,” Xander corrects softly under his breath without even visibly noticing he’s said anything, which is kind of cute.
He continues smoothly so as to not make the guy self-conscious, though. “…and her Watcher’s not listening to her about it, who can she escalate her warning to? And this is a big inter-agency thing: structure and hierarchy can help you determine clearance levels, too. Who has the clearance to, say, access the dangerous artifacts? Who's allowed to know about more than the surface-level everyday operations? Who's allowed to contact and work with other organizations? You don't want someone to just be able to join and have access to the equivalent of nukes.” The silence that follows is slightly worrying, but Leon reminds himself that Rosenberg had escorted him through magical security, so hopefully they're taking some precautions. “You don’t want to have to think about every eventuality. You have to try to build a system with enough structure so they know what to do and with enough flexibility that they can improvise if they need to. Right now, most of what you have is the latter, which is good, but you still need more structure.”
“So, that’s true with, what, other things too? Like, we need actual consistent guidelines to follow, and, uh—” he thinks before continuing. “Supplies. We should have backups and a consistent order. Not like we can’t change it up, but—”
Leon nods, smiling proudly. “If the people you order from at least know the basics, they know what to make sure they have on hand every week, every month, and they can give you a head’s up when they’re running low.”
Finally, Xander looks pleased with himself, like he’d managed to show off adequately. “This is a great start, and I know with the way you explained it I can work out how to tell everyone else, but…” He suddenly stretches over the desk with a groan, chair tipping back precariously. “It’s gonna be so much woooork.”
“It’s okay,” Leon reassures him, placing a steady hand on his back (not too far down; this is a little early for that). “You’re not doing this alone. You’ve got me.”
Xander glances up with a grin, blue eye sparkling. “Yeah, I do, don’t I?”
Buffy/Devil May Cry/Resident Evil/Background NCIS Crossover
Chapter Summary: Leon gives Xander a place to start.
Word Count: 965
Rating: Teen
Pairing: Leon/Xander
When Leon finally looks back up, he realizes they’ve been sitting here a while. The fidgety half-devil doesn’t look bored, though. He’s just been staring fondly at Leon scribbling, apparently, which makes him smile sheepishly and scratch the back of his head. “Sorry; I didn’t mean to ignore you.”
Xander grins and pats the back of his hand. “That’s all right. I was composing a documentary in my head.” He sounds fond. At Leon’s questioning eyebrow, he adds in a narrator voice, “Here we see the Agent Kennedy in his element.”
It’s Leon’s turn to laugh and look away. “Somehow, I’m not sure you’d want to actually publish that one.”
Too late, he realizes how many ways that could possibly be taken, but as Redgrave gets serious, it seems that’s not going to be clarified. “So, big picture. What are we missing?”
The agent pauses, trying to figure out a commonality—and yeah, he can go with that. “Xander, you’ve got a title, right?”
“The One Who Sees,” Xander responds slowly, clearly aware of the irony that he has no idea where this conversation is going.
“I mean, in the organization,” Leon tries to clarify, and just gets a blue-eyed blank stare in return. He squeezes the hand he’s holding to show he’s not frustrated and changes tack. “Okay, let’s try this again. You’ve got a chain of command in the battlefield, right? Why do you have that?”
“…So you know who’s the coolest?” Redgrave tries, before shaking his head, aware that’s not the answer Leon’s looking for. “So you know who’s giving the orders.” He doesn’t sound all that more confident in that response, but it’s a start.
“Say a lookout spots another group of demons trying to be stealthy on the other side of camp. Who should they go to?” It’s not all a battlefield, which is sometimes hard enough to remember after the hell that was Racoon City. The sad thing is, Leon is getting the feeling he’s got a better grasp of the fact that not everything is a battlefield than these kids do. And yeah, so they’re not all kids, that would be creepy and probably illegal, but still. They have covered that Xander is younger, and in some ways they’re stuck in that ‘child in a warzone’ mentality and never emerged.
“The leader.” He’s definitely more sure about that response. Leon waits patiently, and his eye widens. “Oh. You’re trying to tell me that titles aren’t all about sounding cool.”
“Well, certain titles—Slayer, Watcher, Witch, and the like—they definitely serve a purpose in your organization, but it’s not good to stop there. If you want to go school club, you’d have a treasurer—more business, a Chief Financial Officer. Structure isn’t the enemy; it gives you a stable foundation so you know the world isn’t going to crumble under your feet. Your average Watcher here is responsible for a certain number of kids, but they shouldn’t have to do everything. You’re going to have your hands full interviewing and vetting people, but you should actually have staff—cleaners, therapists, and the like. There should be a structure in place so a complaint can bypass if necessary—for example, who can one of the children or teenagers talk to if they have a problem with their Watcher, or just don’t feel comfortable talking to them about it? If—and this is a purely theoretical example because I don’t know everything yet—one of your young Witches—has a prophetic dream…”
“Slayers,” Xander corrects softly under his breath without even visibly noticing he’s said anything, which is kind of cute.
He continues smoothly so as to not make the guy self-conscious, though. “…and her Watcher’s not listening to her about it, who can she escalate her warning to? And this is a big inter-agency thing: structure and hierarchy can help you determine clearance levels, too. Who has the clearance to, say, access the dangerous artifacts? Who's allowed to know about more than the surface-level everyday operations? Who's allowed to contact and work with other organizations? You don't want someone to just be able to join and have access to the equivalent of nukes.” The silence that follows is slightly worrying, but Leon reminds himself that Rosenberg had escorted him through magical security, so hopefully they're taking some precautions. “You don’t want to have to think about every eventuality. You have to try to build a system with enough structure so they know what to do and with enough flexibility that they can improvise if they need to. Right now, most of what you have is the latter, which is good, but you still need more structure.”
“So, that’s true with, what, other things too? Like, we need actual consistent guidelines to follow, and, uh—” he thinks before continuing. “Supplies. We should have backups and a consistent order. Not like we can’t change it up, but—”
Leon nods, smiling proudly. “If the people you order from at least know the basics, they know what to make sure they have on hand every week, every month, and they can give you a head’s up when they’re running low.”
Finally, Xander looks pleased with himself, like he’d managed to show off adequately. “This is a great start, and I know with the way you explained it I can work out how to tell everyone else, but…” He suddenly stretches over the desk with a groan, chair tipping back precariously. “It’s gonna be so much woooork.”
“It’s okay,” Leon reassures him, placing a steady hand on his back (not too far down; this is a little early for that). “You’re not doing this alone. You’ve got me.”
Xander glances up with a grin, blue eye sparkling. “Yeah, I do, don’t I?”
